Friday, February 20, 2015

My Professor, Basanta Kumar Behura, passed away on 16 February 2015 at the age of 93+. When no one I knew was teaching Wildlife management or preaching their conservation, Professor Behura was asking all of us in his Post Graduation classes in Utkal University to take oath to conserve environment and wildlife....As a Zoologist he was better known as an entomologist and herpetologist.

Grief can be so hard, but our special memories help us cope.
My “Professor” was an extraordinary person and he knew who can do what at his
best.

Towards later part of 1974 I was yet to get my MSc results.
Professor Behura asked me to extend my research of PG-Dissertation to seven
species of Aphids as that could lead me to a PhD degree. That was the time when
with Dr Murari Mohan Dash we gave my dissertation to five joint research
papers. Professor Behura said, without publication results meant nothing for
the education system. This exposure and training made me a full time researcher
for rest of my life.

Early 1975, Professor Behura motivated me for research on
crocodiles, saying that it was a new field of studies, and that I will have the
opportunity of working with a “Gora Sahiba” (foreigner). Here he mentioned
about his own trip out of the country to Edinburgh for higher studies and that I was
getting the scope of ‘overseas guidance within my state’.

Because of problems in getting Dr H R Bustard recognized as
a Guide in UtkalUniversity, Professor Behura rescued me by
agreeing to be the official PhD guide. It is also very unusual of a PhD guide
who allowed all my joint papers on crocodiles to be published with Dr Bustard
as I was doing all field work with Dr Bustard. Although I have a range of
non-entomological publications, there is just one review article on crocodile
farming with Professor Behura. Very few PhD supervisors may fit to the mettle
which I experienced in Prof Behura!

For me, Professor Behura is an untiring speaker and also a
patient listener. Sometimes he appreciates me lavishly and at other times releases
for me a sense of protective-warning. I have never forgotten the foundation he
gave and his presence in my conscience whether I was working in Satkosia, or in
Chambal or in Similipal.

One would never like a mentor like Professor Behura to
physically disappear from us anytime ever. If any day I will want to see him
again I will search him in my heart, I will look at my book-shelves, the CDs
and the hard-disks, —all those places where I embrace his memories, where I
store his work, citations and photographs.

Professor and Madam Behura came to us in Baripada and knew
my family closely. My son and daughter came closer to the eldest couple they
had experienced ever, when we shifted to Bhubaneswar after my wife’s death during our
stay in Similipal. If not at any other time, on days of Kumar Purnima ‘Chanda
Chakta’ or ‘Makara Chaula’ we meet the eldest couple whom we admire and revere
the most.

Respected Professor!, that is how I used to address him in
letters; you are gone to a different world. You and Madam Behura have given me
and my children enough consolation and courage when we needed these the most. We
will remember this always.